Random Bridge Thoughts

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Jacoby style raises, part 1.

2009-04-07T11:35:00.002-04:00

For many years now, using 2NT as a strong raise of a major has been the mainstream solution for how to show partner you have a good hand and the values for game. The "standard" treatment is usually any game forcing hand with 4+ cards in opener's major. The basic responses are shortness on the 3 level, secondary suits (5 cards) on the 4 level with 4M being the lightest balanced hand, 3M being the strongest, and 3NT somewhere in between.

From a theoretical perspective, there are a lot of problems with this structure. The first glaring problem is a simple one: opener, the hand which is about to be declarer, does a lot of describing of their values and distribution. This is true even if there is no real slam interest for the partnership; opener describes immediately, responder jumps to game (maybe), but the damage is done. It's even worse if cuebids are taken by both sides, making it easy for the defense.

A lot of partnerships deal with this issue by using an artificial response structure to 2NT, usually including a 3C minimum step. This at least lets us get to game when neither hand has game interest without describing to a fine degree what they have. While this is a large improvement over basic Jacoby, there are still some areas I feel could be improved.

One of the flaws with the Jacoby model is that of Captaincy. If we use Jacoby on all hands where we have a game forcing hand, our effective range as responder is something like 12 to 25. This can be very awkward if we are on the low end of a game force while the opener has extra values; trapped into responding to the Jacoby relays, opener never has a good opportunity to describe all of his hand. If responder has a minimum, he has to express that quickly to avoid the description trap I described above. Valuable bidding space can be lost when we are near the slam zone without high level safety.

Early in my partnership with Joel Wooldridge, we dealt with this issue in an unusual way: our "Jacoby" bid had a much higher minimum. We would only bid Jacoby with hands that had slam interest, about 16 HCP and up. (Hands with excellent slam prospects could be less).

By "pre-showing" the extra values, we never needed to worry that the "wrong" hand was in charge since if the other hand was stronger we were surely slam bound. (In fact, we reversed the "improvement" listed above. Our first step showed extra values, not minimal. With the minimum hands we could afford to start describing immediately since we knew that one member of the partnership had already expressed interest in more than game. At that point it became worth the price of describing declarer's hand.

These methods suited us well for many years, but at this point they have been retired. In part 2 I'll describe what I've used in other partnerships and what I am using today.

Clash of the Titans

2009-03-03T18:55:00.002-05:00

Last week was one of the local Atlanta sectionals. As often happens in tournaments with many knockouts, there were a couple of teams that repeatedly met all week, usually in the finals.

One of the most interesting play problems from early in the week against this team might have slipped under the radar. Playing IMPs in a cold 4S contract, the best line to make 6 may well have gone unnoticed. However, bidding to 6 is quite reasonable; in fact my counterpart at the other table did just that, down 1.

I can't say what defense happened at the other table, but at my table I received a low diamond lead to the J and A, with a diamond return. At this point it's all about finding the best squeeze.

Commonly when you have Qx opposite the Ace, a Vienna coup style squeeze is called for: win the diamond return (discarding a heart from hand), cash the Ace of clubs, and run the trumps leading to an ending like this:

If the K of clubs is in the same hand as a 5 card heart suit, they will be squeezed. This does however require a 5-2 heart break as well as the K in that hand because of the miserable heart spots. Of course, alternate options exist on the hand. With the Ten of H in hand, it would be nice to keep 3 hearts in hand and use the club threat on the board instead of in hand. The best way to do that is to ruff out the clubs, using both the AC and 7S as entries. Of course, that requires 2-1 trumps. If you discard a club right away and find trumps 3-0, you can no longer fall back on the other heart position.

Because of that, I felt at the table the best line was to ruff the diamond return and test trumps. If trumps are 3-0, go after the first line listed above. If trumps are 2-1, draw trumps, club to the A, ruff a club, trump to the 7, ruff a club, run the trumps to this ending:

Now with the 10H still in play, we can win if the KJ of clubs ruff out tripleton or less, if the long club is with 5 hearts, or if the long club is with both the missing heart honors. This seemed like the best chance at the table, but today it didn't work. Clubs are 4-3, hearts are 3-4, honors are split. At the time I didn't think anything of it, it seemed like making 5 was the limit. I was wrong.

With more time to think about the hand later, I realized that there was a rare squeeze position available called a clash squeeze. In a clash squeeze, one opponent is forced to come down to a singleton (usually an honor) to keep cards in multiple suits, exposing their partner to a finesse that didn't exist before. To make it work, I needed the long club on my left with at least one of the 2 heart honors - as well as 2-1 spades.

Going back to step 1, I needed to discard on the diamond return. Not a heart though as in line #1, but the club - just assume we can ruff out the suit and the 7S will be an entry. So, win the diamond, draw trumps in 2 rounds, club to the A, ruff a club, trump to the 7, ruff a club, run the trumps in this ending:

On the last trump, West obviously cannot discard their club. If they discard their last diamond, then East will be squeezed in the red suits when we discard a club from the board. To protect their partner from that West keeps the QD as well, discarding a low heart. If declarer reads the position right, now a heart to the board (West's honor popping up) and a heart back to the 10 will see the rest of the tricks for making 6.

The full hand:

9 Feb - Hand #1

2009-02-22T21:41:00.003-05:00

Dlr: N
Vul: None

P-P-1S-1NT
X-P-2D-All Pass

Result: -1

One of the most interesting hands I've seen in the classes yet. First, let's start with the auction.

South decided in 3rd seat to open a little light. With the good quality spade suit, opening 1S has a lot going for it. It may get partner off to the best lead if North is on lead, it may preempt the opponents, and it may help us win the part score.

West didn't have a clear bid over 1S. I don't think that I would have chosen 1NT myself, but there are plenty of experts who would agree with the call.

North has a maximum passed hand, so the double (penalty oriented) to show values seems to be the best call. This gave South a real problem; this is about the worst possible auction we could have imagined, having opened light. We know that we aren't too likely to beat 1NT, so shooting out the double seems flawed. With no suits...what to do? South chose a creative 2D bid, which has a lot going for it. If North like spades he can always bid 2S. If North has a heart suit, he can bid it. If, like here, partner happens to have diamonds, we found our best spot. Well done.

The defense and play was as good as the auction. With no great suit to attack, West chose to lead his doubleton club. When East won the first 2 club tricks, our declarer Zandy instantly turned to West (Richard) and said "You lied!". Obviously Zandy had a good count on the HCP on the hand, and he used that to his advantage.

East correctly returned a 3rd club. Since Zandy knew that Richard had both the Ace and Queen of diamonds, he correctly trumped with the 9, in case the T was in East. West won the TD and tried a low heart, around to declarer's Q.

Zandy led a low trump, and seeing the 7 from West and knowing that the AQ are there, covered with the 8, holding! He then led the singleton spade off the board, to his King and Ace. This was the ending (West on lead):

Richard could see that if dummy had to lead, he would score both his diamonds. He cashed the Ace of Hearts, trying to lure declarer into being trapped. Zandy was up to the task though, and unblocked the K! A third heart was won in hand, where Zandy led another trump to only lose the A.

A very well bid, played and defended board. It's hands like this that really make it worth the trip to Alpharetta to teach these kids. If they are making plays and bids like this now, there's no telling how good they might be some day.

2 Feb, Hand #4

2009-02-22T21:23:00.003-05:00

Dlr: W
Vul: Both

P-P-P-1C
1S-X-P-2C
All pass

Result: +2

A good auction by all. 1C strong in 4th seat, a natural 1S overcall (they play CRASH), double showing some values, natural 2C, all out. Game seemed remote, nobody had any reason to go any higher. West could have opened a (very) light 1S, but pass is normal enough. Showing the majors would have been okay as well, but showing the good 5 card spade suit and downplaying the bad 4 card heart suit certainly seems reasonable as well.

The defense started with 1 high spade, followed by a low spade ruffed. Declarer correctly lead a low club towards the Q, West winning his K doubleton. With no good way to continue tapping declarer, Declarer was able to drive the AD and take the rest. (At the table, West tried a low spade, ruffed and overruffed. In practice, if he shifts to a red suit declarer will need to be careful to make 4, but it is still possible by drawing 1 round of trumps and then knocking out the AD.)

2 Feb, Hand #3

2009-02-22T21:11:00.003-05:00

Dlr: S
Vul: E-W

2C-2NT-All pass

Result: -2

The light 2C worked very well today, acting as a preempt. West had a difficult decision over the opener. With 15 HCP, some action seems warranted. However, the shape is wrong for a takeout double. West chose to try 2NT and hope for the best. A little aggressive, but certainly very reasonable. 2D may have worked better today, but it may have just gotten them in even more trouble.

North could have raised clubs to 3, but defending 2NT certainly seemed attractive against vulnerable opponents.

East also had a problem. There is something to be said for both passing and bidding Stayman. Bidding may get you to a light game, but with only 7 HCP it will be pushy - especially if partner has wasted values in clubs. (Imagine KQTx.) In practice, bidding Stayman may have worked very well today by allowing East to pass the 3D response. In reality, it is hard to guess that partner is going to fit diamonds so well.

After a club to the K and A, then finding out the bad diamond break, declarer had no choice but to go down. He scrambled for as many tricks as he could get and ended up with 6.

2 Feb, Hand #1

2009-02-22T20:56:00.003-05:00

Dealer: N
Vul: None

Pass-Pass-1S-2C
3C-Pass-3D-Pass
4S

Result: Making 5.

An opening club lead made the play uninteresting. The auction was more the point here. The 3C cuebid by responder seems better than just jumping to 4S opposite a 3rd seat opener, although I'm sure some would just advocate bidding game. After any non-minumum response by opener (anything but 3S), North is clearly good enough to bid game.

We also did discuss the merits of a 3H bid after 3D to show a "counter game-try", a hand that isn't quite good enough to accept, but a hand that's better than a 3S sign off. With 5 trumps, an absolute maximum passed hand and even some secondary diamond honors (JTx), this particular hand is good enough to just bid game.

Precision Class - Convention Card

2009-02-22T20:39:00.003-05:00

One of the exercises we've been doing in class is filling out a convention card.

There are still a lot of topics we've barely discussed; one of the recent topics we've started discussing is how to respond to a major suit opener. This isn't even addressed in the book until chapter 19!

There's a lot on the card that is blank still, but we will fill in details as we go along. There are some modifications that we are making to pure Power Precision (such as the 2D opener, 2H opener, 2NT opener). I'm also not making anyone in class change what they normally play over 1NT, but instead having them continue to play what they learned in other AJB classes.

I've decided I'm going to post the CC as it grows here. Time permitting, I may also formalize the system into a set of notes. For now, the CC will have to do. :-)

I think the CC below represents what we have discussed so far, but I may be missing some details.

Precision Class: 26 Jan 2009

2009-02-05T20:40:00.004-05:00

In class today, we didn't cover any new system. We had the kids play a few hands using Precision, and briefly discussed what came up. I wanted to post some of the hands here to elaborate on what we discussed in the class.

Board #1 was uninteresting.

Board #2

Vul: N-S
Dlr: E

1D - P - 1H - 1S
P - P - X - P
2C - P - 2D - 2S
3D - All pass

After 1D-P-1H, North overcalled 1S. East passed (denying 3 hearts) and West needed to decide how best to compete. Since the 1D opener doesn't show real diamonds, simply raising was out of the question. West reopened the bidding with double, a very reasonable alternative at this point.

In some situations it wouldn't be clear that East has real diamond length after his 2C bid. The 1D opener only promised 2; however, since East didn't bid 2C directly over 1S (to show 5), didn't make a support double (to show 3 hearts) and didn't bid 1NT over the double, it seemed likely that East had more length in diamonds than he might, so correcting to 2D makes some sense.

At this point, North feeling he needed to take some additional action chose to rebid 2S. I think double is best myself, giving you the best chance to find your best contract. East, with a maximum for the auction bid to 3D which ended the auction.

Despite the 5-0 trump break, there are only 4 losers. (1 diamond, 2 spades, 1 club) The sequence of play that happened at the table was unusual, but 3D should make.

3S might make N-S as well. E-W can beat the hand if they can find their heart ruff in time.

Board #3

Vul: E-W
Dlr: S

1D-P-1S-P
2S-P-4NT-P
5S-P-6S-All pass

A bit of an aggressive auction. While the North hand is very good, I'm not sure it's worth bidding RKC so early in the auction. I would have bid something like 3C myself, then continue to cuebid on the next round of the auction.

Having said that, the contract is a decent one. Assuming trumps behave, you can lead a heart towards the Q. If the K is onside, you are home. If not, there are some other remote chances. At the table, the opening lead was the QD, which gave declarer an extra option of finessing the TD. Declarer did well to still test the hearts first. Had that lost, the 'marked' diamond finesse is a good second chance.

Board #4

Vul: Both
Dlr: W

1D-1S-3D-3H
P-4H-All pass

Very good bidding all around. Either 1S or 2S by North would have been reasonable. The preemptive raise on the East hand seems right, even opposite a potentially short 1D. South has the best hand at the table, bids naturally to force and finds their best fit.

West did very well to find an opening club lead, to hold the contract to 4. Very well done, all around.

Board #5 (Reusing #1)

Vul: None
Dlr: N

P-1C-1NT-P
2C-2H-P-P
2S-All pass

East opened a strong club, and South decided to come in. One of the systems we have taught the kids is CRASH; early on in the lessons, they asked how to defend against Precision. We discussed a few different systems, they chose CRASH.

CRASH stands for Color-RAnk-SHape, the order in which they show 2 suited hands. Double would show 2 suits of the same color, 1D would show 2 suits of the same rank. Here, the 1NT bid showed either the round suits or the pointed suits. North bid 2C "Pass or Correct": if you have clubs, we should play here. If you have diamonds and spades, bid diamonds and I'll tell you later.

East decided to try to compete with their natural suit. North correctly judged that South has spades and diamonds, so bid 2S to play.

The play of the hand is complex. After a heart lead, North cashed a second heart and then got trumps wrong by leading to the Q. East wasn't sure how best to get off lead, so passively lead a 3rd heart. (Not best today.) This allowed North to discard a club and lead up to the diamonds. Eventually North was able to establish the diamonds with a ruff and lead diamond winners through West to minimize his losers. At the table, 2S made 2 losing 1 diamond, 1 club and 3 trumps.

Board #6 (Reusing #2)

Vul: N-S
Dlr: E

P-1NT-2D-3S
P-4S-All pass

This hand led to a short discussion about Lebensohl. North wanted to bid 2S (non-forcing) at first, but we wouldn't let him. :-) After the corrected bid, 4S was the final contract. North lost 1 heart and 1 club to make 5.

This post was much longer than I originally intended. I may try breaking up the class hands into separate posts in the future, see if that flows any better.

Precision Classes

2009-02-05T20:29:00.002-05:00

My first post in a long time, but well overdue.

Since October or so of last year, Jenni and I have been teaching some Precision classes in conjunction with Atlanta Junior Bridge. We have a class of 5 students: Arjun, Zandy, Richard, Andrew and Murphy. All 5 placed in the top 50 nationally last year for Youth player masterpoint winners. They are all bright and enthusiastic, eager to learn more about the game.

They expressed an interest in learning about Precision after they encountered it during the Youth Nationals last summer. They hadn't heard of the system before and wanted to learn more about it. Patti Tucker asked if Jenni and I could teach the class, and we were more than happy to do so.

We've been using Alan Sontag's Power Precision as a textbook for the class. We aren't strictly following everything that's in the book, but it's a good baseline for a complex Precision system.

I have decided this year that I wanted to capture some of the lessons here, so I will be posting about hands that come up during the lessons as well as auction discussions, systems, and so on. If nothing else, it should get me to post more often. :-)

Wow, I suck

2008-12-19T22:20:00.002-05:00

So I knew it's been a while since I posted. I didn't realize it had been 6 months. Sigh.

Quick highlights of the past 6 months:

1) Played briefly in the Australian Spring Nationals in Sydney with Jenni. We were middle of the pack, but it was fun. I don't think Jenni has had to deal with Multi without ACBL defenses before. They really are crazy down there. :)

2) Boston was okay. I played with 2 first time partners, did reasonably well with both. I played with Hemont Lall in the BAM - not sure exactly where we ended up, but I think it was somewhere in the low overalls. I played with Mike Cappelletti Jr. in the Blue Ribbons. We were 6th going into the final session, had a nothing set and ended up 15th. Still, pretty good for a first time partnership.

3) I played one day of the Atlanta sectional the week after Boston. I played with Jacob Morgan, which was a lot of fun. I played like crap unfortunately. We washed out of the first round of the KO, but played in a 1 session BAM which we tied for the win. We had a couple of cool hands from that, I'll probably save on for another post.

Not much else. I've been doing a little system work with Jenni, spilling over some of those ideas into other systems. I haven't actually gotten a chance to test any of this though, so I don't really know how effective it might be. Stuff to do.

Back home

2008-07-30T16:48:00.002-04:00

I wrote less often at the NABC than I intended, mostly because I had very little to write about. The week was extremely disappointing for me, bridge wise. I feel that I played well, but our results were so horrific, it's very little comfort.

There was some vicarious good news for me at the end of the week. First off, David Granger and Jon & Mike Rice won the 0-5000 KO playing with Joyce Hampton (and Lukas). That was cool to see. This was the first time Joyce tried to enter an event like that.

Also, Phil Gordon (of poker fame) won the 2 day Swiss on Sunday, basically leading throughout. He played with a top Norwegian pair, Jason Feldman and Josh Donn. Jason was a teammate of mine (playing with Mike Cappelletti Jr.) in Detroit earlier this year when we were in contention for the national Swiss. I've known Josh a long time as well, but I don't believe I've played on a team with him. Phil I know indirectly, as he and Michael White are old friends and partners from Georgia Tech days.

Congrats to all the winners. I'll be looking forward to Boston for a chance to redeem myself.

One and done

2008-07-22T15:04:00.008-04:00

For the first time in a very long time, my Spingold run ended on day one. We lost our match by 2 IMPs, the closest match I've had in a 64 board KO match. (I have lost by 3 before.)

Congratulations to Bob Heitzman, Jonathan Weinstein, Michael Prahin and Alex Perlin on a match well played. They fully deserved to win. I played Bob and Jonathan in the 3 quarters I played, and overall they played very well. They had a 6 IMP lead going into the final quarter, and managed to hold on for the victory.

There was one board in the 4th quarter that I thought might have won us a game swing (and the match), but it was a push at +620. I don't know how the play went at the other table, but here is what happened at mine.

After opening the South hand 1NT, my partner Dan Gerstman bid 4H Texas transfer. This was doubled by Bob (East), 4S by me to end the auction.

How do you play the hand on the ♥4 lead, to the 2 and 7?

While I would love to be able to duck this trick safely, there seemed to be too much danger that the lead was a singleton. However, I was also concerned that if Jonathan (West) did have a doubleton heart, they may be able to take many heart tricks later unless I removed that card from their hand.

Based on this, I led my heart back at trick 2 to the 3, 5 and 9 by East. After some thought, East returned the ♥Q (suit preference for clubs). I ruffed and was over ruffed by West, as expected.

After some thought, Jonathan returned a spade. At this point, I was able to take over. I cashed the 2 top spades, hoping that my 'tapping' of the West hand would be from 3 cards, and I would have no more spade losers. This in fact happened, with Bob starting with Qx of spades.

In this ending, I've already lost 2 tricks. It seems that I have one more sure loser in the ♥J and one possible loser in the diamond finesse. If the diamond finesse works and clubs are 3-3, I might be able to make an overtrick, but at this form of scoring I'm primarily worried about making my contract. Also, both my table feel and the signals (suit preference for clubs) made me believe that the ♦K is offside. So what options do I have?

There is one last possibility: an endplay. I need to lose a trick to West in such a way that he provides me an extra trick. Accordingly, I led the club from the board, and covered East's ♣7 with the 8. When West won the ♣Q, he had only minor suit cards left. A diamond return would immediately give me 10 tricks, so he played a club. This in effect gave me an extra entry to ruff out the clubs. I won in hand (shaking a diamond from the board) and ruffed the 3rd round of clubs. When clubs were 3-3, I no longer needed the diamond finesse for 10 tricks.

The full deal. Notice that other attempts to endplay West such as the ♦10 from the dummy will fail, as East can cover. Here, East clubs were such that I can always force West to win the club trick. If that were not the case, I could win the ♣A, ruff a club and then try floating the ♦10. If West has the J as well as the K, the endplay still works. All of these seem vastly superior to the immediate diamond finesse, since there is always an option to try that later if nothing else works.

Alas, +620 was a push rather than the game swing I hoped for that would have been much more than the margin of victory.

Once again, congrats to Bob, Jonathan, Alex and Michael. I wish them the best in the rest of the event.

At the NABC

2008-07-19T14:05:00.003-04:00

I'm writing this from the comfort of my room at the NABC in Las Vegas. Today is the second day of the tournament, and unfortunately my wife and I have already washed out of the first event. We had a good afternoon session (between 55 and 56%), but the evening was absolutely awful - one of the worst sessions we've ever had.

There were a few hilights during the day. Probably my personal favorite was getting to game with 16 opposite 5, off the AKQ of trumps (all cashing), cold.

The hands:

We had many good opportunities in the evening. It was disappointing not to qualify, but we have a fun team for the KOs today and tomorrow, so all is not lost.

YNABC and script updates

2008-07-14T18:43:00.005-04:00

I haven't written since before the Youth NABC. It was a lot of effort to get everything running smoothly, but it was well worth it. All the kids seemed to have a great time, and the amount of energy in the room was absolutely a marvel to behold.

My contribution, the vugraph, was a success. We had some logistical problems getting going, but once we finally got everything working, life was good. I had a lot of positive feedback both from commentators and spectators.

I've also made some updates to my hand generation script. It has gone from draft mode, into primitive-but-usable mode. I've added a few different diagrams for various designs and uses. Samples below.

My goal with the script is to eventually have an HTML interface to it, so people can create images on the fly for web pages. Mostly for my own use of course, but if others find it useful, great!

Sample images:

One hand:

EW Only:

NS Only:

And the full diagram:

Bridge blog tools

2008-07-02T00:15:00.004-04:00

One of the problems with having a bridge blog is creating a good way to display hands. In the past, any time I've tried to use HTML to represent bridge information, I've taken one of 2 approaches:

Use small images for each of the 4 suits inside of the text.
Use HTML entities to display suits symbols.

Each of these approaches has flaws. The first is difficult to maintain, as there is a lot of text that needs to be added for each suit symbol. Macros help, but it's still not easy to format. The second approach works if the client machine has a font capable of displaying the suit symbols, but managing the formatting can still be challenging. I've used nested tables before to get things to look decent, but it's still a lot of work.

Note: Most computers can display these symbols: ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣. Managing the colors for these symbols or using alternate unicode symbols x2661 (♡) and x2662 (♢) is more challenging. Many computers do not know how to display these symbols by default.

Dan Korbel has a different approach, one which should have seemed obvious in retrospect. He is using images to display his hands. He is currently generating them by using Bridge Base Online, taking screenshots, cutting and pasting into Paint or other graphic tools, etc. Sounds like too much work to me. And a challenge. :-)

Thinking about his idea of using just graphics, I've started working on a script to generate images of hands. It's still in the very early stages, but here is a mock up of what I have so far.

It's not perfect, but I think it will work.

Links:

Dan Korbel: korbelbridge.blogspot.com
BBO: www.bridgebaseonline.com

1st Youth NABC

2008-06-29T13:35:00.003-04:00

This upcoming week will be the first annual Youth North American Bridge Championships, held concurrent to the Atlanta Super Sectional, this upcoming weekend. (July 3rd - 6th.)

The YNABC is age restricted, open to teens and younger. We are expecting about 250 kids or so from all over the country to be competing for the national titles.

There will be a pair event on Saturday and a swiss event on Sunday. The pair event will be broadcasted on vugraph via Bridge Base Online (BBO).

Come on out (virtually) and support the kids!

Links:

http://www.youthnabc.org/
http://www.bridgebaseonline.com/

Strong NT methods

2008-06-19T16:06:00.004-04:00

There are a lot of different Strong NT engines out there that people play. One of the more common ones is "4-way transfers", where 2D and 2H are transfers to the majors, 2S and 2NT are transfers to clubs and diamonds. The step in between is generally used to indicate whether you like the suit being transferred to or not. (People play it both ways, where bidding the in between step is you like it - my preference is the in between says you don't like it.)

I play a variation of 4-way transfers with some of my partners. The 2S bid is no longer a pure transfer to clubs, but instead is a "size ask". Opener bids 2NT on minimums, and 3C on maximums. The 2S bidder might have any of the club hand types that he had in pure 4-way transfers, but also just pure invitational hands that wanted to bid an old fashioned 1NT-2NT.

There are 2 advantages to this approach over the more common Stayman-then-2NT approach. First, when responder bids 2C Stayman, we know he is promising a major. Not a big advantage, but it's something. The second advantage is more significant: when all responder cares about is whether or not opener will accept an invite, we don't reveal opener's distribution right before he declares like we would with Stayman. This can help the declaring side both on the opening lead and later in the hand.

Playing this size ask variant, I was asked an interesting question by one of my partners yesterday. "Would you ever bid 1NT-2S instead of 1NT-4NT?" To be honest, this wasn't a question I had really considered before.

On the surface, it seems like we could indeed give up on the quantitative NT and stay a level lower in some situations. If partner has a minimum, we can bid 1NT-2S-2NT-3NT and get out. However, this auction has a meaning in 'standard' 4-way transfers as well, showing a hand with clubs and ambitions beyond 3NT. (Some people play this as a choice of games, some as purely slam invitational. Either one has benefits and drawbacks.)

If we overload the 1NT-2S-2NT-3NT sequence, then opener may not know the right types of hands to bid on with over 3NT (clubs). This downside may not be that big a deal if we can get out in 4NT anyway, but this is a good example of a common theme in bidding theory: minor changes can have major impacts.

I haven't come to any conclusions about 2S being used for slam purposes yet without clubs. It's an interesting thought though, one to ponder.

Homeward bound

2008-06-14T12:52:00.003-04:00

When I'm not busy playing bridge, my day job is as a network instructor. I teach various training Cisco courses, usually focused on higher end courses for those with years of experience.

I've been in San Jose this past week at Cisco's HQ. I wasn't teaching this week, however, but I was in what's called a "Train The Trainer", or TTT. This lets trainers learn about upcoming courses and technologies in preparation to teach them.

It was a useful week, and I'm glad I went. But it will still be nice to go home.

US Team Trials

2008-06-13T21:27:00.003-04:00

I recently played in the US Team Trials, run by the United States Bridge Federation. This is the organization responsible for determining the teams that will represent the US in international competition.

I have played in international events before, but not in a number of years. When I was active in World Junior competitions, the USBF didn't yet exist. It was created to separate the zonal organization (the ACBL) from a national organizations, according to the new bylaws of the World Bridge Federation.

This was my second time playing in the trials, but unfortunately I didn't do quite as well as last year. The format of the event has 2 round robin phases, reducing to a knockout. My team this year qualified for the second round robin, but we were the 'bubble boy', missing out from the KO by very few victory points.

In fairness, there were a couple of factors working against our team. I was playing with a first time partner, always a challenge in any event, let alone top level events. We were also playing 4 handed, which is a serious handicap in long events. It gets very tiring trying to play top level bridge with no breaks.

All in all, I enjoyed the tournament and look forward to trying again next year.

Links:

http://www.usbf.org/
http://www.acbl.org/
http://www.worldbridge.org/

Kickoff

2008-06-12T23:33:00.003-04:00

I've been toying with starting a blog for a while. I keep looking around, trying to find software I like and so on. I've given up looking, and decided to just start writing.

I've started by using blogger, picking a theme more or less at random. I expect that there's a decent chance that I might change it around. However, given that there's approximately zero chance anyone is reading this, I don't really care. :-)

Most of my posts will probably be about bridge. There might be some other posts based on my mood, but I don't really have any firm plans. I'm just going to take it as it comes and we'll see how it goes.

The basic site is still a mess. I was playing around with some software, but I don't really like the interface. I'm probably going to bag it and see something else, but I'm not sure what yet. We'll see.

EDIT: I've disabled the main site from the test stuff, it now just forwards to the blog. I'm working on trying to create a main site using different software.